


Watson is not married to his work. He is married to Holmes.

by Sherloki1854



Series: Johnlock in the original canon [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Meta, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Freeform, Subtext, TJLC, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 03:07:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4689980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherloki1854/pseuds/Sherloki1854
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Which explains why there are ridiculous inconsistencies. Watson's whole behaviour is rather sweet when it regards Holmes is any way...</p><p>(This isn't really about Watson's practices. It's about how many lies surround Watson's marriage and how obvious it is that he randomly invented a lot of stuff.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watson is not married to his work. He is married to Holmes.

He mentions three different practices. However, there are only two different periods of time where he could have had them. I personally do not believe in his second marriage (after Holmes's return) for more than a second, so I will examine the practice Watson says he he acquired after his marriage to Mary Morstan.

These two practices are located in Paddington and Kensington. (If you are interested, the later practice is in Queen Anne Street, but as Watson's assertion that the practice is very busy completely contradicts his running after Holmes at a moment's notice, which he does every time he mentions that practice, I will ignore that one.)

So in early spring 1889 Watson bought a rather run-down practice at Paddington and plans to work on it with much zeal to bring it back to success; however, instead of working, he spends most of his time writing up Holmes's old cases (most of which were published between 1890 and 1892, which means he had started to write them in 1889) and running off with Holmes whenever he sent a telegram (still assuming that what Watson tells us is the truth, which I will repeat I doubt). In early summer, Watson says his practice is successful, a couple of weeks later it is essentially deserted, and then it will continue to be “quiet”, which gives Watson a marvelous excuse to go off with Holmes. When Holmes returned after his three years of hiatus, the practice had inexplicably moved to Kensington, which makes no sense as there would not have been the time to build up a new practice, and also, why would Watson do it, and Watson seems only too happy to get rid of it to return to Holmes.

It is also beautiful how Holmes spent a lot of money just to have Watson return to him, and it is a proof of how intimate they are that Watson accepts it tacitly when he finds out. The whole thing is rather sweet.

 

So he clearly invented them at random when he needed them. Like his marriages(s).

 

This is a list of every time his practices are mentioned:

 

The Stock-Broker’s Clerk, spring 1889

_Shortly after my marriage I had bought a connection in the **Paddington** district. Old Mr. Farquhar, from whom I purchased it, had at one time an excellent general practice; but his age, and an affliction of the nature of St. Vitus’s dance from which he suffered, had very much thinned it. [...] Thus as my predecessor weakened his practice declined, until when I purchased it from him it had sunk from twelve hundred to little more than three hundred a year. I had confidence, however, in my own youth and energy, and was convinced that in a very few years the concern would be as flourishing as ever._

 

The Crooked Man, summer 1889

“ _I have no doubt that Jackson would take my practice.”_

 

Engineer’s Thumb, summer 1889

_I had returned to civil practice and had finally abandoned Holmes in his Baker Street rooms [...]. My practice had steadily **increased** , and as I happened to live at no very great distance from **Paddington** Station [...]_

 

The Naval Treaty, July 1889

“ _I was going to say that my practice could get along very well for a day or two, since it is the **slackest time** in the year.”_

 

Red-Headed League, 1890

“ _My practice is never very absorbing.”_

 

The Final Problem, 1891

“ _The practice is quiet,” said I, “and I have an accommodating neighbour.”_

 

**The Norwood Builder, 1894**

_**At the time of which I speak, Holmes had been back for some months, and I at his request had sold my practice and returned to share the old quarters in Baker Street. A young doctor, named Verner, had purchased my small Kensington practice, and given with astonishingly little demur the highest price that I ventured to ask--an incident which only explained itself some years later, when I found that Verner was a distant relation of Holmes, and that it was my friend who had really found the money.** _

 

 

 


End file.
